Trump returns to bashing media as pressure builds

UNITED STATES: US President Donald Trump attacked the news media and dismissed leaks from the White House as ‘‘fake news’’ on Sunday, following reports his sonin-law tried to set up a secret channel of communications with Moscow before Trump took office.

The Republican president returned to the White House after a nine-day trip to the Middle East and Europe to face more questions about alleged communications between Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington.

‘‘It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media,’’ Trump wrote in a series of Twitter posts on Sunday.

The White House faces mounting questions about potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign, which are also the subject of criminal and congressional investigations. Trump officials were preparing to establish a ‘‘war room’’ to address an issue that has begun to dominate his young presidency.

Two Republican US senators played down the Kushner reports on Sunday, while the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, took a darker view of such contacts with representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘‘ My dashboard warning light was clearly on and I think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community — very concerned about the nature of these approaches to the Russians,’’ Clapper said.

Contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials during the campaign coincided with what US intelligence agencies concluded was a Kremlin effort through computer hacking, fake news and propaganda to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House.

Kushner, a real estate developer married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has no previous government experience. He initially had come to the attention of FBI investigators last year as they began scrutinising former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s connections with Russian officials.

Reuters